TPE Breast Reduction at Reverend Jacks

The Doll Advocate · Post by **The Doll Advocate** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 9:11 am

Following!!!

RevJack · Post by **RevJack** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 12:19 pm

Sorry for my absence, life happens sometimes.
So the hot knife approach works best. I put the boobs edges together right as I want them, and insert the hot blade all the way in. For me, I waited until melted tpe began to show at the seam, on the top of the blade, then slowly moved it a blades width further down the seam, pressing the soft melty edges together behind the blade.
Since I was applying hand/finger pressure to the wound, I only did an inch and a half at a time so the pressure was consistent untill it completely cooled. If you short yourself on time for complete cooling you can get holes in the seam like this:

: Pinholes; 20230915_003611.jpg (2.57 MiB) Viewed 192 times

So I had to do the seams over again. Take your damn time or do it over.
Now this is where my two projects crossed paths. I was reducing the boobs because I was turning the doll into a sea creature. So at this point I changed her color, I made her green.
I'll post in detail how I colored and transformed her but the short version is I thinned oil based artists paint with Xylene and sprayed her with my airbrush. When dry I hit her with the heat gun until she got almost Glossy and let her cool down. That sealed the pigment into her skin.
I bring this up that because the next image of her boobs is, well, green.

: Ready for nipples; 20231116_110933.jpg (2.14 MiB) Viewed 192 times

: Ready for nipples; 20231116_110916.jpg (1.68 MiB) Viewed 192 times

What I want to share about this is that I smoothed the seams with this tool:

: Smoother; 20230929_180633.jpg (2.31 MiB) Viewed 192 times

And learned that I really needed to do the smoothing BEFORE I painted her. The pigment is part of the TPE now, so melting and moving it around redistributed the pigment and encapsulated it in the TPE. Hence the dark green spots in the crease of her boobs, and the return of flesh tone to others.
What? Just take it off with mineral oil you say? Great idea, just didn't work.

: Can't wipe it off now!; 20231116_111146.jpg (2.43 MiB) Viewed 192 times

Mineral oil was able to pull the pigment out that was just below the surface, but not the pigment I melted and buried deeper.
So that's where I am now, ready to somehow smooth out the tint on the boobs, and then add some nipples.
Reference New Nipple Monday at Reverend Jack's for how I craft my nipples.
viewtopic.php?p=2157246#p2157246

To be continued...

carbohvdrates · Post by **carbohvdrates** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 1:00 pm

I have been following this thread with great anticipation as well as looking into pigmenting skin and before I even read on, once I saw that color before you had finished smoothing I seriously inhaled and said WAIT!!! out loud.

Jumping the gun and not trusting the process is such a classic crafting project moment, truly. Perhaps discoloration can be covered up by airbrushing later on? Not necessarily a long-term material solution but an aesthetic one if it still shows through tint blending. Your efforts are legendary regardless Rev.

Wheezer · Post by **Wheezer** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 1:18 pm

Interesting results !

Good to see that the heat fused oil paint for TPE worked for you too.
As I mentioned when I explained the technique, the oil paint pigment bonds into the base TPE.
It's pretty weird when you actually run into a situation where you can't just rub off the color on a TPE doll.
Totally opposite to almost everything with TPE you may have run in until then.

Now from that I have encountered, the bonding can range from partial to complete, based on hot air application of direct melting with a hot tool.

Here are a couple of way I have dealt with post cure color modifications ...

First is OXY-10. It will drive any of the stain that is not bonded to the TPE deeper into the base lie a "normal" stain. This can tone down a heavy color.
Best in cases where you used hot air to set and only the top 1mm or so fused into the TPE.

Second is to apply another coat with light rolling or airbrush.
Usually a lighter color can knock that down safely, or even use your target base color.
With the original base color set into the TPE, you can safely layer colors like tradition painting.

The caveat is that the base is cured and set and that you are complete with your hot device molten TPE manipulation.
Since the heat set oil method basically results in a tinted TPE, if you add color and heat and twirl with a tool, you are just mixing tint into your molten TPE like with casting.

Nice spray results, especially the non uniform coating.
The effect is some nice realism, at least to me.

Cheers!
... W ...

RevJack · Post by **RevJack** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:18 pm

The striping on the breasts and the mottling on the belly and arms is intentional. So is the tightly darker outlining on collar and rib line and abdominals.
As Wheezer said, the "gently heated" color on the breasts was able to be lightened with mineral oil rub. The darker green (exact same pigment just more consentrated) is from the heat smoothing and is deeply baked in.
For science, I will apply some benzoyl peroxide to the darker greens and see what happens.